Congrats 2017 Recipient M. Dean

Congratulations on being the first recipient of the Creators for Creators Grant.
Please tell us a little bit about yourself!

I am a very soft-spoken girl from Florida who is in love with rather old things. I grew up with art and history and music and now use it as part of my work as an illustrator and cartoonist. I am a graduate of Ringling College of Art and Design and creator and co-creator of two webcomics, The Girl Who Flew Away and Coming Soon: Regents Walk. I now live in New York City, where I collect bromeliads and have learned how to get stuck impatiently behind slow walkers.

Your bio said you have been drawing comics since your early teens. What drew you to the medium?

I was never actually that drawn to comics as a kid, because it seemed like the only options were cape or Archie comics and the one random Simpsons comic we had crammed in a pile of magazines for years—I was much more interested in mice with swords books. But I am very naturally drawn to telling stories, especially those told visually, since I’m an artist. I started making comics when I was younger because it was the clearest way to express a story that goes beyond the single image. And I might have picked up a manga or two in my middle school years.

Your proposed title is I Am Young. Can you tell us a little bit about it? What can readers expect?

Since college I’ve been tossing around short stories about young people from a long time ago in my head and I went through various titles to find one that could both tie these short stories but remain universal. Ultimately, I want to tell stories about the foibles of youth, the mistakes and nuances, the people, places, and things that feel important. I realized a title like I Am Young reveals both naïveté and an acknowledgement that everyone grows older and changes. These stories take place beginning in the mid-century, go throughout the remaining 20th-century and end in the 2000s. By the end all the characters that were seen as teens would be middle aged or older, they have changed as the world has changed. And we as individuals and the world around us continues to.

Congrats again! Any closing words?

I would like to close just by saying how very thankful I am to everyone has has picked up, read, and shared their enjoyment and appreciation of my work. With this grant I’m so grateful that I will be able to create more of it and do something that I love and means so much to me personally. Thank you so much!